Keysar Trad has campaigned for legal recognition of polygamous marriage on Crikey. And I didn’t exactly hold back in expressing my disagreement.
But despite this history, my motivation for revisiting the issue now is concern for Keysar’s wellbeing, after reading a Sisters In Islam report on opendemocracy on polygamy in Malaysia.
Sisters in Islam found that polygamous marriages had negative effects on all family members involved – men, women and children. My concern for Keysar’s health arises from this quote from a Malaysian husband who was finding it – er – “hard to keep up?” with the demands of polygamy:
Before I took another wife, our sexual relations had waned a bit but as soon as I got married she is making more demands and I’m getting exhausted and I think it’s affecting my heart problem.
Give up the polygamy campaign, Keysar – your heart may be in it, but that doesn’t mean that your heart is up to it.
4 Comments
What a way to go though. Seriously.
Campaigning on Crikey? That’ll get the job done.
Let’s hear it for polyandry. (BTW ‘polygamy’ means ‘multiple spouses’, M or F, which I’d bet big buck$ is NOT what he had in mind.
As with Stokely Carmichael, ‘leader’ [sic! -supposedly a non hierarchical group..) way back in prehistory who said, of the position of women in the Black Panthers, “PRONE!”. Either he had summat agin the missionary position or just didn’t know the difference between ‘prone’ & ‘supine’.
An Australian timber worker has been arrested in Lebanon, as the woman he went to meet to make her his third wife. She had relatives who were wanted by the police and he stayed at their house.
Polygamy would be quite hard on all three women in this case as wife one has three children, wife two has two children and wife three has one child. There is no provider as he is in prison. Quite a complex situation and definitely bad for the health of all involved.
There are other problems with polygamy for women including the power role that occurs in a complex situation like this. This is a total patriachy and there will be no independence for the women in many ways. It is rare to hear a woman sing in its praise although men are far keener. Big Love may be a dramatised version but I can see how polygamy could be bad for health including the mental state of children raised in this situation and having to deal with the broader society – or being locked out of it.
Keysar Trad should be able to comment about the financial benefits in Australia of polygamy. The social security system has determined that any wife after the first is not legally married and is therefore a single parent and eligible for payments (subject to conditions). Polygamy is illegal in Australia and yet there are those who practice it in communes, sects and mosques and benefit from the taxpayer because of it. There are a number of men who love this part of polygamy. The women just get on with the work.